Gender in Hollywood

These are the words delivered to Wilma Deen by her mother in Splendour in the Grass (1961) - the archetypal teen pregnancy melodrama - which reflect a patriarchal, and rather scathing critique of female sexuality (Cocca, 2006). However, by the 1960's and the beginning of the sexual revolution this perspective was becoming archaic, a view that is arguably conveyed in Splendour, and the earlier 1959 Sandra Dee film A Summer Place. Nevertheless, I will argue that although A Summer Place and other teen pregnancy melodramas actively condemn female sexual restraint, patriarchal domesticity, and other antiquated social values. Ultimately the endings of these films - using A Summer Place as an example - restore the status quo and reassert the traditional role of the middle class white female in the 1950's, to the detriment of a society on the cusp of social and cultural upheaval.

In this essay I will provide a brief exposition of white middle class female social values in the 1950's and how these are reflected and criticised in A Summer Place. This will be followed by an account of how these values were changing as a result of an increasingly liberal culture, female autonomy, and an imminent sexual revolution. And finally, I will provide an analysis of a key scene in A Summer Place- the consummation of Molly and Johnny's love- as representing anything but the changing role of female sexuality, responsibility, and autonomy, which their characters seem to inherently represent.

Being white and female in the 1950's was complex. Although the workplace was changing and traditional gender roles were being called into question, change was yet to be unequivocally stated and accepted (Bryars, 1991). Dating still revolved around female sexual capitalism (Breines, 2001),an economisation of sexuality, love, and most importantly marriage. Womanly restraint and chastity, domesticity, and patriarchy were still the cornerstones of American culture (Ibid). The reason being that,

An upright citizenry was based upon nurturing and moral mothers, and the suburban home... was predicated upon a vision of the nuclear family with segregated roles and duties (Reumann cites Mayer, 2005:92).

Within this social value system white middle class women found themselves wedged between two different conceptions of female sexuality, "in the first, women were portrayed as passive and sexually quiescent; in the second, their sexual desires were seen as rapacious and socially destructive" (Reumann, 2005:87). Paradoxically, female sexuality, the all important ingredient to a happy home, was seen to both hold together and simultaneously tear apart the social fabric of American life.

However, from the very first scenes of A Summer Place we get a somewhat different picture, most notably through the sexualisation of Sandra Dee, the quintessential white teen virgin. Instead of a de-sexed teenager, blissfully unaware of gender politics, Molly (Dee) is instead presented as a sophisticated and sexually provocative child- "an hors d'oeuvre for the adult male palate" (Nash, 2005:16) From one of the earliest scenes in the film we see her standing atop the sailboat (or phallus take your pick), divulging her sexual transgressions to her father and notably through her eye-line, the audience. Soon after it is through her eyes that we see Johnny standing atop the Pine Island cliffs; Molly is depicted as sexually awakened to the point of being predatory. This provides a sharp contrast with the representation of her mother Helen who is presented as a sexually repressed and unsympathetic mother, damaging the healthy sexual development of her offspring (Cocca, 2006), as Molly says: "she makes me feel ashamed to have a body" (Daves, 1959). This juxtaposition of mother and daughter provides a clear and derisive critique of the aforementioned social value system that Helen intrinsically represents. The film at least appears to have a liberal 60's style (Fine, 2004) as it represents a more complex and sophisticated depiction of female sexuality (Cocca, 2006).

However, Helen's archetypal personality works both ways. Her "advice is meant to sound cold blooded and prehistoric, but it

So what do they talk about in this all important scene, and why? The answer is King Kong, "It's about this big ape or gorilla or something that carries this girl off in the palm of his hand" (Daves, 1959). This all important discussion at the climax of A Summer Place - the next scene being the metaphorical waves crashing against the cliffs - ignites a discourse on race, whiteness, and Americanness. The giant animalistic ape engaged in an unrestrained pursuit of the virginal blond, ending atop the most phallic symbol in the world (Rosen, 1975), and of course for his troubles Kong is peppered full of bullets; the monstrous threat to American civilisation is quelled. Thus, "The crudish myth of white supremacy waves its ugly head... showing what's [really] at stake in the maidenhead of even the most liberally furnished of summer places" (Fine 2004:181). Subsequently, despite all their efforts to be 'good', despite all the moral lessons of their parents, despite their sexual maturity, and despite their sheer likability as young kids falling in love, Molly gets pregnant, she has to. Sexual transgressions require punishment, lest white Americans begin to wonder if everything is still alright. Hence, at the height of their sexual liberation and defiance of premarital chastity, Molly and Johnny's seemingly innocent conversation about King Kong is therefore read as having the ironic effect of reaffirming the archaic social values the duo are trying so desperately to dispel (Erb, 1998). Moreover, "the virginal Sandra Dee is depicted as having to pay the price for her sexual maturity: pregnancy; teen marriage; and a 'happily ever after' life on Pine Island" (Dika, 2003). The young lovers inherit the very institution where their parents first had 'inappropriate' sex, and were later condemned to bitter marriages through an inability to control their teenage lust. This cyclical ending is not a happy one, as Benshoff argues: A Summer Place exposes the "pressure and resentments that were building up in the collective unconscious of American women - before clamping the lid back down on the pot and claiming everything was fine." (2004:224). Whilst from the perspective of racial and cultural assimilation in post-war America "whiteness is made whiter by the two blond children reproducing" (Fine, 2004:180). Evidently one might be forgiven for mistaking the fact that a sexual, racial, and cultural revolution was imminent.

For all its insight and sexually mature themes, the film simply fails. Its premise seems to be one of encouraging emerging social values, feminism, female autonomy, sexual maturity, and gender equality, but instead it simply reasserts the patriarchal female domesticity it seemed initially so set against. The reader has to ask, what was the point? For it would take the most optimistic of readings to somehow conjure the image of a happy life for Molly and Johnny from the ashes of their brief and failed defiance of white middle class life in the 1950's.

Bibliography

Benshoff, M. Griffin, S (2004). America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality at the Movies. Melbourne: Wiley-Blackwell.

Breines, W (2001). Young, White, and Miserable: Growing Up Female in the Fifties. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Byars, J (1991). All That HollywoodAllows: Re-reading Gender in 1950's Melodrama. North Carolina: UNC Press.

Cocca, C (2006). Adolescent Sexuality: A Historical Handbook and Guide. Abingdon: Greenwood Publishing Group.

Daves, D (1959). A Summer Place. Warner Brothers Pictures.

Dika, V (2003). Recycled Culture in Contemporary Art and Film: the Uses of Nostalgia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Erb, C (1998). Tracking King Kong: A Hollywood Icon in World Culture. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

Fine, M (2004). Off White: Readings on Power, Privilege, and Resistance. New York: Routledge.

Kazan, E (1961). Splendour in the Grass. Warner Brothers Pictures.

Nash, I (2005). American Sweethearts: Teenage Girls in American Popular Culture. Indiana: Indiana University Press.

Reumann, M (2005). American Sexual Character: Sex, Gender, and National Identity in the Kinsey Reports. London: University of California Press.

Rosen, D (1975). King Kong: Race, Sex, and Rebellion. New York: Routledge.